Cambridge University scientists have created the first living organism with fully synthetic DNA: a radically redesigned form of soil and stomach bacterium Escherichia coli (The Guardian).

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Although redundant codons – instructions to make amino acids – were removed, the artificial genome still runs to a length of 4 million DNA base pairs, making it the largest ever to be synthesised. The first bacterium to ever be synthesised was a partially redesigned form of Mycoplasma mycoides in 2010.

The US president has declared a national emergency on the basis that "foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology and services" (The Register).

China, against whom the US is waging a trade war, and Huawei aren't mentioned by name, but the order puts a framework in place to justify a prohibition on Chinese telecoms equipment. More troublingly for the communications technology firm, Huawei has been placed on the Department of Commerce Entity List, effectively banning it from buying components from US companies without specific government approval.

The latest World Health Organisation figures from the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reveal that 1,136 people of a total 1,720 known cases have died (Gizmodo). That's 66 per cent of all people infected and the WHO warns that these numbers – which already make this the second worst outbreak on record – are set to increase as health workers in the region struggle to reach patients in the face of disruption by militia groups.

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Forests are interdependent, the trees within them connected by a complex network of soil bacteria and fungi that's been called the "wood wide web" (Science). Now, for the first time, the world's forest-tree symbiotic networks have been mapped and classified into categories depending on the kind of fungal network they support. Based on this, ecologist Thomas Crowther warns that a warming climate may result in a shift towards fungal networks that rapidly liberate carbon, rather than sequestering it.

Brace yourself, more tech dystopia is coming (WIRED). The trailer for season 5 of Black Mirror has dropped, and true to form it starts by focusing on a ubiquitous technology bugbear: the repetitive sound of far too many smartphone notifications.